The Rhelm

09/06/2013

Ticket packages at The Rhelm

It is with great pleasure that I can finally announce that The Rhelm will stay open in September for limited engagements. We are taking reservations now on our website http://www.therhelm.com/pricing.html.

We have listened to the wonderful feedback from all of our travelers and their guardians and have incorporated your ideas into this next engagement of The Rhelm. We now offer a 2-hour Storybook experience, which includes all 6-village characters. Your children will enter the gates of Wentrus and become the Travelers on a quest to help the people of the Rhelm repair and reinforce the village against the goblins. You can sit-down and enjoy the show as your children work with others in this fantasy wonderland.

If you have already visited The Rhelm and been through the one-hour experience, you’ll want to come again and see the Storybook experience. And if your friends haven’t yet been to The Rhelm, let them know that now is a great time to experience it.

Thanks again for all the great feedback.

Party Rhlem Experience The Trouble in Wentrus VillageHave your party at The Rhelm! A two-hour birthday experience where you get the entire Rhelm and all the characters all to yourselves. You bring the food and drinks (pizza and juice is preferred). You will not need any party favors or decorations b...

09/04/2013

Helping the Weaver

09/01/2013

Travelers Helping Wentrus Village

Travelers Helping Wentrus Village

09/01/2013

From 10am to 12pm today The Rhelm is all booked up. The rest of the day is open. Come on down!

08/16/2013

ONLY 3 WEEKENDS REMAIN!
Counting down to the conclusion of The Rhelm. If you haven't visited The Rhelm yet, you only have 3 weekends left to do so. Come see what everyone is saying is the most unique family activity in Hawaii. Get together a group and make a reservation by calling 253-8602. The Rhelm is a lot of fun to explore as a family and even more fun with a group of friends. Hope to see you all soon!

08/16/2013

Meeting Our Own Expectations - by Deidre Harris

As children, we were constantly asked to meet someone else’s expectations. In fact, an all too common experience was getting a paper or test back with a grade or comments written from the teacher. Rarely were we given the opportunity to evaluate our own work or determine for ourselves the criteria for a specific grade. And not that meeting other’s expectations are a bad thing, but how are children to learn what to expect from themselves? What opportunities do we give them to practice developing their own criteria for a job well done?
Recently, I got to explore this question when a young traveler came to the Rhelm. Because he had been there the week before and knew his way around, we gave him the title of young apprentice and asked him what part of the village he wanted to do good deeds in. He immediately went to the “fuse box” by the electrician’s hut and started pulling “dead” fuses to see if he could get the light strip above the box to be brighter or to stay on for a longer period of time. After a few moments of rearranging the “fuses”, I invited him to step back to see if what he had done gave him the results he was looking for (basically asking him to evaluate his work). After looking at the light strip for a moment or two, he shook his head and said “nope, just a few more”, and went back to work rearranging the “fuses” in two rows. Now, what was truly amazing was that this traveler (now a young apprentice) was about seven or eight years old. Yet, despite several attempts from his dad to move on, he stayed at the “fuse box” for over twenty minutes rearranging the “fuses”, stepping back to see the results of his work, and then going back to rearrange the “fuses” again until he was satisfied. Now, no one had told him how bright the light strip had to be or how long the light strip had to stay on for. He set the criteria for himself and evaluated his progress along the way until he was satisfied… for twenty minutes! Now how cool is that?

08/15/2013

Stories from The Rhelm
Mistress Weaver

"I'm not sure how I'm going to get this shop back together" mistress weaver said to herself as she looked at the mess that was once her shop. "That dragon sure made a mess of things." Mistress weaver continued to mutter underneath her breath as she continued to sweep up bits of burnt cloth and yarn that was mixed in with the dirt. After a few moments, she put the broom down and leaned on the make shift counter that she had made out of a piece of wood and some old chairs. Just looking at all the mess made her tired and she still hadn’t figured out how she was going to rebuild the side of her hut that had been burned down by the dragon Ego as he was chasing after the goblins.

She still remembered how frightening it was to see the red and gold dragon streaking across the sky and heading toward the village with flames billowing out of his nostrils. His roar of anger was so loud that it had shaken the windows and dust was flying about from the beating of his massive wings. Mistress weaver had barely time to duck under her table when the side of her hut had burst into flames and the smell of sulfur, rotten meat and dust assailed her nose making her choke. Just thinking about it made her knees quiver and her heart race.
Mistress weaver stood up and reminded herself that no one had seen the dragon since he had headed off north chasing after the goblins. “And good riddance! I’m not sure what was worse, the dragon or the goblins.” Knowing that the sun would be setting soon, mistress weaver picked up the broom and with a loud sigh, went back to sweeping.

08/12/2013

Travelers from all over the Rhelm showed up to help Wentrus Village this weekend.

Travelers from all over the Rhelm showed up to help Wentrus Village this weekend.

08/02/2013

Wentrus Travelers

07/28/2013

Today, young travelers have come to Wentrus Village to learn new skills and help the villagers with good deeds.

07/27/2013

Travelers using the goblin snare with the help of the Wizard, the Guardian, The Scribe and Flora.

07/23/2013

Reconnecting Families by Deidre Harris

These days, an all too common sight is the family sitting in a restaurant, or in the car, or walking down the street with everyone on a personal device of some kind or another. Or family gatherings where the children are doing one thing and the adults are doing something else. And not that this is necessarily a bad thing - just an observation. That even when families are together, they are often not "together".

So, when Jeff and I first started talking about the Rhelm, we said we wanted a place where families can come and play together. A place where families can share experiences filled with laughter, joy and a sense of wonder. So, whenever I am working at the Rhelm, I often check to see that this is occurring. Are families doing activities together? Are they sharing smiles and laughter or giving each other encouragement? Is there a twinkle in the eyes as they look at each other or acknowledgment for good deeds done?

So far, I have seen those things and much more. That once entering the Rhelm, there is a certain rhythm that takes over. It starts at the gate when families first enter Wentrus village. They stand there and stare, not quite sure what to do. They are immediately greeted by the Scribe, Weaver or one of the other five characters (Tinkerer, Electrician, Wizard, Flora or Rachael) and shown around each village shop to see what activities they would like to begin with. Once the family has visited several shops and gone thru a dragon sighting or a goblin appearance, they settle in and start visiting the shops on their own, with the children often revisiting a shop to redo their favorite activity and the adults taking numerous pictures or videos.

This is when the magic really starts to happen. When we really start to see parents (or grandparents and other adults) start playing with their children. A great example is the mom who came in on a Friday night, obviously tired and for the first few minutes sat at each of the tables while her daughter interacted with the characters and did the activities. About halfway thru the mom started helping her daughter with a difficult task. And within another two to three minutes, they were laughing and encouraging each other. From that point on, the mom was engaged and energized and switched between doing activities with her daughter and by herself (yes, we often see the adults playing too!). As the daughter put her name on the tree of good deeds, they were both smiling and talking animatedly to each other about the activities they had done.

Woo hoo!! I have to say, seeing this family and many others go thru the same process of reconnecting is the best job in the world

07/20/2013

THE RHELM - Adventure Theater!

Flora, the Forest Maiden gives us a tour of Wentrus Village.

http://youtu.be/2sOFatA1p1g

"The Rhelm - Adventure Theater" presents, "The Trouble in Wentrus Village". Come and take a tour with Flora, a Forest Maiden, played and narrated by Puakaili...

07/20/2013

REVIEW OF THE RHELM FROM THE STAR ADVERTISER
The Honolulu Star Advertiser features The Rhlem in the "Today" section. "Interactive theatrical entertainment awaits adventurous younger children (and perhaps their parents)..."

07/14/2013

The Rhelm: A Royal Family Adventure | Hitting the Stage

Hitting the Stage reviews The Rhelm.
"As a mom of three young kids, I highly recommend this play-space as a unique “glue-building” activity. It is scheduled to run through September, but if you are like me, you are going to want to take advantage of this place more than once during the summer, so visit soon!" - Kim Shire, Hitting the Stage.

http://www.hittingthestage.com/the-rhelm-a-royal-family-adventure/

As a mom of three young kids, I highly recommend this play-space as a unique glue-building activity. -- Kim Shire continue reading

07/12/2013

Stories from The Rhelm
Where is Colyn?

This story is about the Goblin Colyn and takes place after the Goblins hid from the Dragon Ego outside Wentrus village.

After a few hours, the small group of goblins finally came out of hiding and looked around. They were deep in the forest under a heavy canopy of trees where Ego, the dragon, could not see. “I think we lost him,” said Thorn. “That sure was a close one,” replied Brystle. “Where’s Colyn?” asked Cae. The three goblins looked behind several trees, under the leaves lying on the ground and inside a bunch of bushes. But Colyn was nowhere to be found. “Where could he be? I thought he was right behind me”.
Meanwhile, back in Wentrus village, Colyn was shivering in fright as he hid in an old unused closet in the Wizard’s tower. He had tried to follow Brystle, Cae, and Thorn out of the village when the dragon Ego caught their scent. But he had tripped and fell in the scramble. In fact, his beak was still sore from where it struck the ground. And his tummy was hungry. And he missed his friends. “Why did I ever leave the rook to begin with?” Colyn muttered to himself. “I want to go home. I don’t like it here. My tummy is hungry.” Colyn peeked out of the closet hoping he could sneak out and find some food. When he didn’t see anyone, he left the closet and snuck into the hallway and over to a window where he heard voices. As he looked out, he saw a few shopkeepers sweeping up debris left over from Ego knocking things over. He was just about to turn away when he saw a glint of something sparkly. “Gold, gold!”Colyn muttered excitedly while hopping up and down. “I see gold!” and all thoughts of his hungry tummy disappeared.

07/10/2013

Greetings Travelers!
Watch this video to see the story of what happened to Wentrus Village and how you can enter the Rhelm to answer our call for help.

The Guardian of Wentrus.

07/09/2013

Building Resiliency by Deidre Harris

In The Rhelm, we always talk about encouraging persistence and building resiliency, which are two of our founding principles. At any given time, these principles can be seen as "Travelers" to the the Rhelm interact with many of our educational and exciting activities. Take the story of Cindy (not real name). Cindy looked to be about 13-14 years old and came to the Rhelm with a younger brother Michel (not real name) who looked to be about 7. Cindy was trying to balance the metal beams to restore balance to the village of Wentrus, and in order to be successful, she had to balance the metal rods one by one without any falling down. The task was quite difficult, as it involved figuring out what rods should go where and at what distance. But, Cindy kept at it while muttering under her breath, "I'm going to keep going until I get it." As one rod would fall, she would go back in and re-balance it and then add another rod again and again and again until she got all of the rods to balance at once. Cindy could have stopped at any time and moved on to another activity but she persisted and through her persistence built resilience. Until finally, almost twenty minutes later, all the rods were balanced. And while her success was celebrated by the wizard, the tinkerer and myself, the look of pride on her face was priceless as she went off to tackle yet another activity.

07/06/2013

A young traveler in the Rhelm is working on a basket hoist for the Weaver to put the berries she picked on the plains of Surda. She is being helped by Rachael, the half-elf - half human who is in the village to guide travelers through the adventure.

The Rhelm is a place where children can actively contribute to the important needs of the village. They have fun working in the village and are empowered by their contribution.

07/05/2013

Thoughts from The Rhelm - from Deidre Harris

Building Deep Connections
In our day-to-day life we often find ourselves balancing our own work schedules with our children’s school schedules, sports practice, music lessons, tutoring, birthday parties, and a list that goes on forever. One would think that with all that togetherness, we would feel more together. So why is it that we often feel the opposite? Like we’re just going from one activity to another? Or when we’re with our kids, we don’t really feel connected?

These are not new questions. In fact, these questions have been around since woman entered into the workforce and television and video games became a part of our everyday lives. And it doesn’t mean that it’s bad to be a working mom or to buy video games or watch TV. It just means there are more things competing with our time. So what are we to do?

PLAY! That’s right, just play. Playing together is a great way to connect with your children and research shows that strong connections are like glue. The stronger the connection the more you’ll stick together thru the rough times. And playing with or even next to your child is a great way to build those deeper connections. That’s why building connections are what we are all about at the Rhelm. We wanted a place where families could step away from the distractions of current life and build connections thru play.

07/03/2013

Entering The Rhelm At Aloha Tower

Tannya Joaquin visits The Rhelm... and has this to say about it:
http://www.midweek.com/entering-the-rhelm-at-aloha-tower/

Come out and enter The Rhelm today from 4-9pm

The Rhelm Adventure Theater in Aloha Tower Marketplace is an interactive discovery center, museum and theater all in one | Photo from Tannya Joaquin

06/29/2013

WHAT TO EXPECT:
When you come to The Rhelm you will be greeted by The Guardian of Wentrus Village. The Guardian is a friendly protector at the gates of the village and he will introduce you to the story of what has happened to the good people of Wentrus at the hands of the mischievous Goblins and the Dragon Ego.

The Guardian will then give you your passport to Wentrus and open the gate. You are free to explore the village and visit each of the shops at your own pace. As you, the Traveler in Wentrus, move about the village, the wonderful shop keepers will ask you to help them with tasks they must complete. The Electrician may ask you to help him repair the broken circus in his power plant. The Scribe may ask you to help her send coded messages to the neighbor village of Trithany. The Tinkerer may need help building catapults. The Weaver will certainly need help making sweaters for the little people. And the crazy Wizard is always concocting something new in his tower.

As you travel through the village and do good deeds, the shop keepers will give you a stamp on your passport. Visit all the shops and collect all the stamps and as you leave Wentrus you will be given a leaf with your name on it and add the leaf to the tree of good deeds.

Once the tree of good deeds is full of the names of travelers who have helped the people of Wentrus, the Elves will return and help all the people of The Rhelm.

06/29/2013

Just some of the friendly villagers and their shops in Wentrus Village

Just some of the friendly villagers and their shops in Wentrus Village